Sky Tour Podcast for June 2025

I’m Kelly Beatty of Sky & Telescope magazine, and tonight we’re going on a tour of the stars and planets that you’ll see overhead during June. This month we’ll celebrate the Sun’s solstice; follow the Moon through all its phases and close encounters; track down a couple of faint constellations; and shine a spotlight on the star Arcturus. 
Ready for all that? Then grab your curiosity, and come along on this month’s Sky Tour.
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Stargazers, as a rule, crave darkness. Nothing gets our juices flowing like a wide-open canopy of stars set like diamonds on black velvet. But for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, June offers the shortest nights of the year. This month’s solstice occurs on the 20th at 10:42 p.m. EDT. Astronomically speaking, that’s when summer begins in the Northern Hemisphere and winter in the Southern Hemisphere. 
At the June solstice, the Sun is its farthest north of the celestial equator. What this means in practical terms is that sunrise and sunset are at their northernmost points along the horizon. On that morning, on England’s Salisbury Plain, thousands of people converge on Stonehenge with the hope of seeing the Sun rise along this stone monument’s famous solstice alignment. I was at Stonehenge in 1981 for this event, but it was cloudy that morning. Bummer!
The solstice’s other consequence is that the Sun arcs its highest across the sky for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, and it stays up for the longest duration. The result is consistently warm weather, and that’s what makes this time of year “summer.” For someone, at a latitude of, say, 40° north, which runs from Salt Lake City through Philadelphia and over to Madrid, this day will offer 15 hours of sunlight. It’s just not fair! Here in Boston it’s often too cold or snowy to head outside in December, when nighttime is longest, then I get shortchanged six months later when I can view the night sky more comfortably. Oh, well!
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Let’s talk about the Moon’s whereabouts, and in this episode we’ll do something a little different. We’ll follow the Moon all around the sky. It takes the Moon 29½ days to complete a cycle of phases, from new to full and back to new. And throughout that lunation, as it’s called, the Moon is constantly gliding around Earth in its orbit. Sure, each day the Moon rises in the east and sets in the west, just like the Sun does, but that’s because Earth is spinning. But on any given night the Moon’s orbital motion causes it to shift eastward in the sky with respect to the stars around it.
We’ve got a great opportunity to watch this subtle movement on June 1st. This month opens with the Moon well up in the southwest at nightfall, just a couple days shy of first quarter. And that evening it’s close to the star Regulus. For those of you in eastern North America, you’ll see that fat lunar crescent about 1½° to the right of Regulus. But keep watching! The Moon appears to move eastward in its orbit by almost exactly one diameter per hour — what a convenient coincidence! So over time the Moon sneaks closer and closer to Regulus, and they’ll be just ½° apart at moonset. For those of you out west, the Moon and Regulus are closest together right as twilight ends, and then you can watch the two of them move apart.
Each night you’ll see the Moon situated farther east with respect to the stars by about 12°. That’s a little bigger than the size of your clenched fist held at arm’s length. Meanwhile, the Moon’s shape gets fatter as the Sun illuminates it more fully as seen from our perspective. First quarter occurs on the night of June 2nd. The Moon’s next close encounter follows on June 5th, when it sits a few degrees to the right of the bright star Spica (SPEE-kuh). On the 9th it’s likewise a few degrees to the right of Antares, marking the reddish heart in Scorpius.
Full Moon occurs in the wee hours of June 11th in North America, but for practical purposes that’s the night of June 10th. This is known as the full Strawberry Moon. You can watch it rise in the east just as the Sun sets in the west — or get up early the next morning to watch it set at sunrise. A bowl of strawberries to snack on would be a nice touch, don’t you think? 
If you can stay up close to midnight, that big bright orb will be positioned almost due south. But do you notice something odd? It’s so much lower down than usual. That’s because the Moon’s orbit is close to the plane of Earth’s orbit, and when it’s full the Moon is almost exactly on the opposite of Earth from the Sun. So when the Sun is its farthest north in the sky, as it is during June, the full Moon is its farthest south. The opposite arrangement happens in mid-winter, when the Sun never gets very high, even at noon, but the full Moon looms almost overhead at midnight.
Later on in June, you’ll have to be up later and later to watch the Moon rise. Unless you’re an incredible night owl, eventually you’ll have to settle for waking up very early to keep track of the Moon in the sky before dawn. Last quarter is June 18th, and the next morning look for the Moon near Saturn as dawn twilight approaches. On the 22nd, now just a slender crescent, it passes near Venus. New Moon is early on June 25th, and the cycle starts anew. At month’s end watch for the Moon to reappear in the evening sky as a thin crescent after sunset. On June 29th, it snugs up very close to Mars low in the southwest. This pairing will be even more dramatic if you can view it through binoculars or a small telescope. If you missed the Moon gliding past Regulus on June 1st, it’ll slide past Mars likewise on the evening of 29th. And look about three fists to their lower right — you might catch a glimpse of Mercury lurking in the twilight glow.
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Once evening’s twilight has faded away, keep an eye on Mars over in the southwest. The Red Planet will be with us all month, but on the evening of June 16th it’ll be especially close to Regulus. As I explained in last month’s Sky Tour, Regulus is the anchor star in the constellation Leo. So it’s sometimes called Alpha Leonis. Look for an arc of stars just to the upper right of Regulus, shaped like a backward question mark with Regulus at the bottom; these mark the Lion’s head and mane. Its body stretches to the upper left.
Now look farther to the left, about a quarter turn from where the Sun set, to face south, and we return to Spica [SPEE-cuh]. Most everyone calls this star SPY-cuh, but I’m being true to its Latin roots. Anyway, it’s the alpha star in the constellation Virgo, who’s lying down in the sky, with her head off to the right and her legs toward left. Spica, which is Latin for “ear of grain,” marks one of her hands. In fact, depictions of Virgo often show her holding some wheat stalks. 
Before it gets too late, look about 1½ fists to the lower right of Spica for a quartet of fainter stars arranged like a misshapen box. This is Corvus, the Crow. And below that, hovering just above the horizon, is the very long and very dim constellation Hydra, the Water Snake. You’ll have to use your imagination, because the stars of Hydra are rather faint. But this slithery critter is larger and longer than any of the other constellations in the sky. It stretches from below Mars and Regulus in the west all the way to three fists past Corvus in the east.
Meanwhile, on the eastern side of the sky, a fresh batch of stars and constellations are gradually getting higher at the same time each night throughout June. For example, low in the southeast at nightfall is the star Antares, the red-tinged heart of the constellation Scorpius. Antares is obvious even if you suffer from a lot of light pollution. As the hours pass, as Earth turns on its axis, the stars of Scorpius will move toward west and be higher up. 
Take a moment to compare the color of Antares and Spica. Antares means “the rival of Mars,” and it has a distinctly peachy color. But Spica looks icy white, a consequence of being a much hotter star. Halfway between them is the dim constellation of Libra, representing a scale or balance for measuring weights.
Long ago, skywatchers considered Libra to be part of Scorpius. Its brightest star, more than two fists to the upper right of Antares, is named zoo-ben-es-sha-mali. Nearby, a bit to the lower right, is slightly dimmer zoo-ben-el-gen-ubi. These names are fun to say, and they have interesting meanings in Arabic. Zubeneschamali means “the northern claw” and Zubenelgenubi “the southern claw”. A balance doesn’t have claws, of course, but a scorpion does. Ancient Babylonians considered these two stars to mark the front of the celestial scorpion, and even though they’re now officially in Libra, their names stuck. If the sky is clear and your light pollution isn’t too bad, you can see that Zubeneschamali and Zubenelgenubi form the upper-right side of kite-shaped quartet of stars. That’s Libra, or most of it anyway.
Now you might know that the Sun and major planets travel around the sky through a sequence of 12 constellations called the zodiac. Scorpius is one of them, and so are Libra, Virgo, and Leo. This chain of constellations forms a highway of sorts along the ecliptic, which marks the plane of Earth’s orbit — and basically those of all the bright planets — in the sky.
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Here’s one more star to check out. Crane your neck and look straight up to spot Arcturus, the fourth-brightest star in the nighttime sky. It’s fairly close by as stars go, only 37 light-years away. Arcturus is a red-giant star, a swollen orb that’s more than 25 times the Sun’s diameter and 200 times its brightness. Can you detect a bit of ginger-ale tinge in its light? Compare the color of Arcturus to that of the star Vega, high in the east and six fists away. Vega is just a touch brighter than Arcturus, but it’s also a much hotter star that shines with an icy-white light. Can you detect a color difference between the two of them? It’s subtle, so look carefully.
Arcturus is highest in the evening sky around 10 o’clock. For most of us, it’ll be 60° to 70° above the horizon. But it passes directly overhead as seen from Honolulu. This geometric distinction made Arcturus an important navigational aid for early Polynesian sailors. They determined their latitude by noting which stars were passing directly overhead, through what’s called the zenith. At some point between 1000 and 1200 AD, some of these sailors crossed the equator heading northward and happened upon the Hawaiian Island chain. And while there they noted that Arcturus was the most prominent zenith star, a realization that they used to guide them back to these islands on return visits.
Here's one more tidbit about Arcturus. It’s one of just a few dozen stars in the Milky Way known to travel in an elongated and highly tilted orbit around our galaxy’s center. Our Sun isn’t one of them, by the way. To researchers, these oddball orbits suggest that Arcturus and those other stars are from a small galaxy that collided with the Milky Way billions of years ago. Imagine what that must have been like!
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That’s about it for this month. If you want more tips for viewing the night sky, go to skyandtelescope.org and check out “Sky at a Glance”, which offers great star- and planet-gazing activities on a day-by-day basis.
If you haven’t already subscribed, you can find Sky Tour episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, or wherever you listen. And please leave a rating or review! I’d love to have other stargazers find this show. 
And if you want to explore the solar system and universe more deeply, please do check out the full line of binoculars and telescopes available at Celestron.com.
Sky Tour is a production of Sky & Telescope, a division of the American Astronomical Society, and is produced by me, Kelly Beatty.
Join me next month, when I’ll show you how to track down all of the Scorpion in the sky — or how to stay clear of it, depending on your point of view. Until then, I wish you Clear Skies.